1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an obstacle detection apparatus to detect an obstacle rushing out ahead of a moving vehicle in a running direction thereof by means of an image of an image sensor installed on the motor machine and a method therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a conventional obstacle detector, an obstacle detector that analyzes a motion vector (optical flow) of ach point of an image is proposed. However, the optical flow varies by running of a moving vehicle on which the obstacle detector is mounted. Therefore, it is difficult to detect an obstacle stably.
A technique to cancel shift of an image caused by pitch and yaw of a moving vehicle is proposed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-112252. However, there are various movable objects within the image. Therefore, it is difficult to cancel completely the shift due to pitch and yaw of the moving vehicle.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an obstacle detection apparatus to reduce affect of the pitch and yaw that an image sensor mounted on a motor vehicle incurs due to a travel of the moving vehicle, when detecting an obstacle rushing out ahead of the vehicle in a running direction thereof using an image sequence provided from an image sensor mounted on the vehicle.